The Gulf Coast, a tourist haven that draws throngs of revelers to beaches across several Southern states, has been sorely afflicted as the Delta variant tears through the region, which has relatively low rates of vaccination and often lax safety measures.
But even compared to other parts of the South that are struggling against the latest wave of the virus, the Gulf Coast stands out like an angry red scar on maps that depict coronavirus hot spots and hospitalizations.
The average per person hospitalization rate for Panama City, Fla.; Mobile, Ala.; and Gulfport, Miss.; is considerably higher than that of their states as a whole, even though they are three of the four states with the highest rates in the country, according to data compiled by The New York Times. The per person average case rates in the surrounding counties are all more than twice the national average. The vaccination rate in all three counties is well below 40 percent, according to federal data.
“It is almost like what’s going on in the West, where you have lots of fuel, a source of ignition and then you end up with a large fire,” said Dr. Bernard H. Eichold II, the health officer of the Mobile County Health Department. More than 90 percent of the county’s 461 hospitalized Covid patients on Thursday were unvaccinated, he said.
The people inundating the hospitals along the Gulf Coast are not the high-risk, often older ones who were most vulnerable in the earlier waves of the pandemic. The Delta variant is spreading among younger people, many who thought they had nothing to fear and did not get vaccinated.
“We’ve had 44 year olds, 45, 35, that have died,” said Tiffany Murdoch, a hospital administrator for Singing River Health System, which operates three hospitals in coastal Mississippi. “I’ve been a nurse for 15 years, and I’ve never seen anything like it.”
The region’s thriving tourism industry, widespread opposition to masks and low vaccination rates collided with the contagious Delta variant earlier this summer and case numbers have surged since then.
“After Fourth of July is when everything kind of went to hell in a handbasket,” said Ms. Murdoch, noting that casinos in coastal Mississippi are open with no mask mandates and the beaches are packed.
While a growing number of Democratic-led states and cities nationwide have moved to require masks and vaccinations, Republican governors in hard-hit states like Florida, Mississippi and Alabama have resisted such mandates, despite the surge in cases.
As of Friday, 142 people were hospitalized with Covid-19 across Singing River Health’s network, including 39 in I.C.U., and 94 percent were unvaccinated, officials said. The surge has prompted a shortage of I.C.U. beds and left staff overwhelmed.
“If you walked into our emergency department right now you would be like, ‘What is happening.’ Every single hallway has beds in it with patients, every chair,” said Ms. Murdoch, describing the system’s hospital in Gulfport, where staff have converted a surgical recovery room into an overflow I.C.U.
Last week, a husband and wife in their 40s, neither of whom were vaccinated, died within days of each other, she recalled. An unvaccinated 48-year-old nurse died on Monday. “We had five people die, like room after room after room after room,” just last Friday, she said.
In neighboring Alabama, Gov. Kay Ivey reinstated Alabama’s state of emergency last Friday, which had expired in early July, in an effort to expand hospital capacity. But Alabama ran out of I.C.U. beds earlier this week.
The surge worries Sara Miles Agee, a mother of young children in Mobile, where she said few people bother to wear masks and just 33 percent of residents are fully vaccinated.
“It’s just really frustrating,” she said. “We’re in dire straits down here. We have no I.C.U. beds. I don’t know what’s going to make people do the right thing.”
Phil Valentine, a prominent conservative radio host in Tennessee who refused to get vaccinated, then urged his followers to get a shot after being hospitalized with Covid-19, has died, his station said on Saturday.
Mr. Valentine scoffed at the need for vaccines, writing on his blog that his chances of dying from the virus, should he become infected, were “way less than one percent.”
He announced his Covid-19 diagnosis on July 11 and pledged to return to his show within a day or two.
“Unfortunately for the haters out there, it looks like I’m going to make it,” he wrote. “Interesting experience. I’ll have to fill you in when I come back on the air. I’m hoping that will be tomorrow, but I may take a day off just as a precaution.”
Less than two weeks later, his radio station, 99.7 WTN, announced that the Nashville host was hospitalized “in very serious condition, suffering from Covid pneumonia.” The statement said Mr. Valentine had had a change of heart and urged others to get a vaccine.
“Phil would like for his listeners to know that while he has never been an ‘anti-vaxer’ he regrets not being more vehemently ‘pro-vaccine,’ and looks forward to being able to more vigorously advocate that position as soon as he is back on the air, which we all hope will be soon,” the station said.
Some people responded to the announcement with words of support for Mr. Valentine, while others said he deserved to get sick.
On Saturday, the station announced on Twitter that Mr. Valentine had died, urging followers to “keep the Valentine family in your thoughts and prayers.”
We are saddened to report that our host and friend Phil Valentine has passed away. Please keep the Valentine family in your thoughts and prayers. pic.twitter.com/vhXpE7x0oX
— SuperTalk 99.7 WTN (@997wtn) August 21, 2021
The Rev. Jesse Jackson and his wife, Jacqueline, have been hospitalized after testing positive for Covid-19, Mr. Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition said on Saturday in a statement.
Both were being treated at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, The Associated Press reported.
“Doctors are currently monitoring the condition of both,” the statement read. No further details were available about their condition. Mr. Jackson is 79, and Jacqueline Jackson is 77.
Mr. Jackson got vaccinated in January. He has been campaigning to convince more Black Americans to get inoculated.
“Vaccination is imperative to save lives, particularly for African Americans, disproportionately the greatest victims of the virus,” he said at the time.
He revealed in 2017 that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.
Mr. Jackson has been a civil rights advocate for more than 50 years and sought the Democratic presidential nominations in 1984 and 1988. He was a close associate of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The British government is starting an antibody surveillance program for adults who test positive for the coronavirus in order to develop a better understanding of its vaccine campaign and the immune response to different virus variants.
The program, which the U.K. Health Security Agency said would begin on Tuesday, will allow for up to 8,000 participants each day who book a P.C.R. test through the National Health Service’s “test and trace” program. However, the antibody tests, which will be free, will be sent only to those who test positive for the virus.
The information gathered will help gauge reinfection rates for those who had previously caught the virus, as well as measure breakthrough cases, and also study those who did not mount an immune response.
The British health secretary, Sajid Javid, said in a statement on Sunday that those who take part in the new public program would help “strengthen our understanding of Covid-19 as we cautiously return to a more normal life.”
Previously, antibody tests were mostly available for only clinical or research purposes.
The Health Security Agency said that it hoped that the data collected from the initiative would improve its understanding of the protection provided by antibodies after either infection or vaccination. It said the data could also provide insight about those who do not develop an immune response.
Upon testing positive for the coronavirus, those who have opted into the new program — limited to those 18 and over — will be sent two finger-prick antibody tests. The first must be done as soon as possible after the P.C.R. result, before the body has time to generate antibodies in response to the current infection, and the second 28 days later.
As the fourth wave of the coronavirus swells across the United States, driven by the highly contagious Delta variant, people who had booked late summer travel are now facing a familiar quandary: Should they once again cancel their plans?
For many — among them, those who are vaccinated, headed to high-risk areas and concerned about breakthrough infections — the answer is yes. New data shows that although vaccines provide strong protection against severe illness and hospitalization, even vaccinated people are at risk of contracting the virus and spreading it, and getting sick themselves.
But while the slowdown is puncturing hopes of a rebound after the travel industry’s worst year in recent history, the dip in bookings is — for now — relatively small, according to travel advisers and hospitality companies. The hope is that the current situation will be more of a speed bump than a stoplight.
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